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It is a pleasant little apartment building in the west end, overlooking the Humber River, the marina and various trails running through the woods.

The building used to have 15 balconies. These were prized for their views, and used the way all tenants use balconies — to grow a pot of tomatoes, to sneak a quick cigarette or as a substitute for the outdoors in the case of one tenant whose health does not permit her to otherwise leave her apartment.

But the balconies were deteriorating, and the landlord said he intended to repair them, and so scaffolding was duly erected.

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Months of nothing.

Then one day the balconies were suddenly torn away, and Juliet balconies were put in their place.

O Romeo, Juliet is the sun, but a Juliet balcony is not a place where you can sit outside and watch it set. A Juliet balcony is, in simple fact, a set of bars across a doorway.

The tenants took the landlord to court asking for compensation, primarily because to have a thing, and then to be deprived of it, changes the rental equation; especially when — wound, meet salt — the landlord is seeking an increase in rent, in part to help pay for the demolition.

The landlord’s lawyer first tried to argue that the submission of the tenants was filed too late. The issue of lateness hinged upon the precise moment at which tenants lost use of the balconies.

There followed a discussion about whether a balcony is, in law, a facility or a service, because neither facilities and services are exhaustively defined in housing law and in lawyerly terms if a thing is not defined then perhaps it does not exist.

Oh, golly, if you step onto a balcony then you surely know exactly what it is you are stepping on, whether it is defined in law or not.

But the landlord’s lawyer lost his argument on the issue of the filing date, primarily because for a long time the tenants had been expecting their balconies to be replaced, which is different from expecting their demolition; and it only took an hour and 15 minutes to clear that up.

Tenants are asking for a rent reduction of 10 per cent because, while their balconies are, on average, only 6 per cent of the square footage of their apartments, tenants feel they surely lost much more than that as soon as they could no longer step outside to take the air.

Sometimes the law is nothing more than putting one foot after another. Here is an abridged exchange between a lawyer and a tenant under oath:

Lawyer: “Do you live there alone?”

Tenant: “With my husband.”

Lawyer: “How big is the apartment?”

Tenant: “720 square feet.”

Lawyer: “How many bedrooms?”

Tenant: “Two bedrooms.”

Lawyer: “How long have you lived there?”

Tenant: “Thirty-four years; 38 years in the building.”

Lawyer: “Is this your affidavit?”

Tenant: “Yes.”

Lawyer: “Is it true?”

Tenant: “Yes.”

But you would have stopped yawning when the tenant said, “I use the balcony all the time. It’s green space. I go out there for coffee before work. My dad, while he was alive, was out there all the time. I had a fountain. I did my ironing there. I could see the canoers and kayakers. My animal used it.”

Her animal is a bunny, litter-trained.

If I thought the bit about the bunny was cute, here is high droll humour in court: A photo of the building, showing the Juliet balconies, was introduced; the adjudicator said, “So this is what a Juliet balcony looks like.”

“Poor Juliet,” said the lawyer for the tenants.

“Ha, ha,” said the assembled.

In the end there were arguments about whether a 10-per-cent rent reduction was fair, or if it should be a smaller amount based on the square footage and the amount of time a balcony can actually be used, given that we have winters here.

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